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In 2020, when Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since 1996, Representative Ruben Gallego celebrated.
The triumph was especially poignant given that 10 years earlier, Arizona had passed SB 1070, requiring law enforcement to check anyone suspected of being in the country illegally to provide proof of legal residence. The law served as a template for the type of anti-immigrant policies that Donald Trump championed.
One X user had asked Gallego in 2020 how Democrats could better reach the “Latinx” community. “First start by not using the term Latinx. Second we have to be in front of them year round not just election years. That’s what we did in AZ,” he said.
Four years later at a rally in Glendale, Gallego was one of many Democrats who warmed up the crowd before Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage, speaking in a mix of English and Spanish.
“This excitement, this enthusiasm to fight for a better, brighter Arizona is what we need. ¡Juntos! Y Unidos! Siempre,” he said, the last three words meaning “together and united forever.” Later that day, Gallego and Harris went to a Mexican restaurant to campaign together.
Gallego is part of a generation of Latino Democratic elected officials who cut their teeth when Arizona was more conservative. And now, he’s one of several local leaders who might help Harris win in Arizona.
As Harris infuses new energy into the Democratic ticket, Latino Democrats are far more willing to campaign with her — and point out how her populist economic policies can help Latino voters. This is key during a time when many Latinos do not see the Democratic Party as being particularly interested in the issues that matter to them.
Ever since Biden announced he would not seek re-election and backed Harris as his successor, the vice president’s polling numbers have continued to rise. Several groups have popped up to host Zoom calls to show their support for the Democratic nominee, including White Women for Harris, who raised an astonishing $20,000 a minute at one point. White Dudes for Harris raised $4 million and featured marquee celebrities like Jeff Bridges and Mark Hamill.
But Harris’s campaign will also need to shore up another critical demographic that has shifted toward the Republican Party in recent years: Latino men. In 2016, 24 percent of Latino men voted for Trump compared to 12 percent of Latina women, according to Latino Decisions’ election eve survey. But in 2020, the same group found that 31 percent of Latino men voted for Trump compared to 23 percent of Latinas.
In the past month, numerous Latino organizations have enthusiastically thrown their support behind Harris. Last week, the political action committee for League of United Latin American Citizens endorsed Harris, marking its first ever endorsement in a presidential campaign. On top of that, Culinary Union 226, a heavily Latino union in Nevada, endorsed the vice president.
“And I think that the Vice President is doing a fantastic job driving the message home that she's the daughter of immigrants, she's, you know, had a first job at McDonald's, worked summers at McDonald's, versus Donald Trump, who's somebody who's only out for himself,” Oscar de Los Santos, a member of the Arizona State House of Representatives who serves as assistant minority leader for Democrats, told The Independent. “And I think it's that kind of economic message that's really going to win over Latino men.”
De Los Santos also noted that the Harris campaign will ultimately have 18 offices in Arizona.
The swelling support for Democrats is a far cry from the Arizona of 2010, when then-Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070. Notably, two of Arizona’s most prominent Democrats are Latinos who have a military record. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who defeated an election-denying candidate in 2022, is a Marine Corps veteran, and so is Gallego.
“And I think it’s been remarkable to see a state that, you know, a decade plus ago, was known as the SB 1070 state, suddenly come out in full force, and like giving Latinos like Adrian a huge margin statewide, and and I think the same thing is going to be true for Ruben Gallego, and I think that's going to have very good up ballot effects for the Harris campaign,” De Los Santos said.
State Senator Flavio Bravo of Arizona said that Harris’s focus on the economy will attract Hispanic male voters as well.
“In Arizona, we have record number of businesses coming to Arizona,” he told The Independent. “They obviously need a lot of employees, and it is probably, when you think of the industries of hospitality, construction, restaurant industry, they depend a lot on Latino men and immigrants in general.”
At the same time, Fontes disputed the idea that Democrats are losing Latino voters.
“I think what we what we have, is the perception that all Latinos are cut from the same cloth,” Fontes told The Independent.
“You know, some of us who come from Venezuela and or Cuba, or if we come from Central America, the vast majority in Arizona, of course, come from Mexico, we see the world a little bit differently, and that’s going to play into our politics,” he said. “Trying to make grand assumptions about Latinos generally, I think is a little dangerous, and I think it’s a little myopic.”
But Fontes conceded that the switch at the top of the ticket has given Democrats a critical boost among Latinos. Equis Research, a Democratic firm that tracks Latino voters, found that Harris made a 10-point jump with Latino men when she took over the top of the ticket.
Back at the rally in Glendale, as the DJ warmed up the crowd by pumping music, she asked if there were “any Latinos” in the house before blaring Puerto Rican singer Elvis Crespo’s 1998 “Suavemente” and Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.”
